Born Marilyn Louise Hixon, she was educated in Springfield’s Catholic schools and graduated from Catholic Central High School in 1968. Two years later, following the rules of a now bygone era, she had to relinquish her scholarship at Mount St. Joseph College when she married Frank Demma.
Mr. Demma said that before their marriage, she demonstrated a constancy she would bring to their 50-year marriage and to all aspects of her life: “I was in the Army for two years overseas, and she wrote to me every day. She was kind of the glue that held everything together.” While finishing her studies at Wright State University, Mrs. Demma worked in the Office of Urban Studies. Her husband said that office addressed “the same kind of needs” she would encounter in years of social work and helped set her on that path of service.
After two jobs in local banks, she put her financial skills to work for the Clark County Health Department. She helped establish a grant-seeking program that would secure more than $3 million in funding in the years that followed.
She also began to endear herself to those she worked with.
Diane Van Auker, a colleague of 14 years at the department, said Demma was “an unwavering support to me demonstrating every day what grace looks like.”
“Marilyn was humble and never let her ego get in the way of a productive collaboration,” she said.
That is a skill Demma further developed under the guidance of local social service icon, the late Lois Murphy. Murphy pioneered coordination of local services for struggling families and children through the Clark County Family and Children First Council, which brought together representatives of the mental health, developmental disabilities, juvenile court, children’s services and schools to provide “wrap-around services.”
Demma succeeded Murphy as head of that group in 2010 with a style that struck Kent Youngman, who was then the head of the Mental Health and Recovery Board and is now CEO of the Rocking Horse Center.
“She was soft-spoken and kind, but tenacious and dogged in her determination to get things done, to make things happen,” he said. He said she was “passionate in her beliefs and convictions, the strongest of which was ‘more can be accomplished together than apart.’”
Springfield Mayor Warren Copeland agreed.
“What I always found very helpful about her is that she would flex. She would do what she needed to do to relate to people, and that was terribly important for what she was involved in. I really respected her deeply and was proud to work with her.”
Rebecca Larger Roberts, a mother of three now living in Grandview Heights in Columbus, saw Demma’s style of encouraging others while she was in Demma’s high school Sunday School class at St. Raphael Catholic Church.
“She was in charge of helping us take the knowledge that we had learned into the life we were going to live,” Larger Roberts said.
In doing so, “She had an amazing quality to her listening (in which) she helped people to take the time that they needed to unravel their thoughts rather than rushing them through the process. She wasn’t someone who put pressure on people to come up with a textbook answer, but to work through what the consequences of their ideas could be, (and) to accept (that there might be) multiple right answers.”
“She was one of those touchstone people,” said Larger Roberts. “She was someone whose respect you wanted to maintain even though you knew that if you made a mistake, she would still care for you.”
Pam Meermans, who spent a career in social work in Springfield, saw the result of that in professional circles: “She just created an atmosphere that you wanted to come to the tables where Marilyn was.”
Demma’s work at FCFC was so crucial that Meermans asked her to stay in the position for the two years while Meermans was getting her bearings as Deputy Director of Family & Children’s Services.
“I think good leaders are good modelers,” Meermans said. “And she modeled it, she showed you constantly in those actions those values. And you can’t fake (that). You can’t fake it.”
Nancy Mahoney, another Lois Murphy disciple who spent a lengthy career in Clark County social services, calls Demma not only “a dear soul” but a visionary as well.
“You can get a group of people in the room, but if there’s no vision, if there’s no organization -- if there’s no purpose -- nothing gets done,” Mahoney said.
“She really saw how things could be better and how to put that together.”
Kay Rietz, now retired from the Ohio Department of Public Health, said there was a down-to-earth reason for that: “Marilyn mastery of the complex local and state system financing and regulations.”
Demma put that skill to work in flexing the various systems to meet the needs of stressed families.
“She allowed us to do a lot of creative things,” said Jennifer Taft Young, a former Demma colleague who is now a national consultant in bring technology to social work.
“She was always looking for opportunities and great about busting down barriers.”
That sometimes meant getting swimming lessons for a troubled child who needed direction, helping to get the electricity turned on for a mom who would take her children to a neighbor’s house to bathe them, then finding a way to keep the power on.
Wynette Carter-Smith, who spent a career at Clark County Juvenile Court, said Demma was also skilled at unraveling the complexities of conflicts with colleagues.
While working on an interagency middle managers group – a place where individual cases were worked out and cooperation was critical – “I had a situation with a department head from another agency, and I struggled with it,” Carter-Smith said.
“She listened, she had an open mind, she understood,” Carter-Smith said.
Then Demma interceded in a way that “allowed us to have” the conversation required to get things done.
For Carter-Smith, the cherry on top was a family recipe rice pilaf dish Demma brought to carry-in holiday dinners that, when she learned how Carter-Smith loved it, included an extra container just for her.
In the same way Demma shared family recipes she shared stories and joys of her family life in ways that connected people to one another.
Norm Horstman, deacon of St. Joseph and St. Raphael Parish, said Demma was “grounded always in her family love,” which was “always all over her,” and that the way she “wore that love (was) part of her attraction and her strength and compassion.” “But she also “extended that love,” he added, by asking about others, “what if that were one of my children … what would I want for them?”
“She did not did not see her faith spirituality only as a refuge,” he said, “but a challenging abundant way of living.
The Rev. Eli Williams, who worked closely with Demma on a Clark County fatherhood initiative, said “there is a deep spirituality of people who are able to be appositive force quietly in the background, providing sort of a glue to bring people together around something they’re passionate about.
“I think that’s what it means to be salt and light in the world. People who take that seriously can make a tremendous difference.”
He cited Murphy and Demma as shining examples.
She was awarded her parish’s Sister Dorothy Stang Award for her efforts to seek mercy and justice for marginalized people. Demma had been looking forward to attending an event honoring her as an Extraordinary Woman of Clark County for all her activities.
In addition to her husband, she is survived by three sons, three grandchildren, a brother and sister and her mother. A celebration will be held after the pandemic.
In harmony with the view of so many that Demma left the earth a better place, the family encourages others to have memorial trees planted in a National Forest not just in her memory, but in the memory of someone they loved.
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